Important Quotations to Instruct and Inspire

“[The government] employs 22 million people. Not all have the power to impose force on the rest of us, but millions do. Some use it to bully us in big and petty ways. Twenty-two million government workers delay the Keystone XL oil pipeline, raid poker games, force us to put ethanol in cars, prohibit drugs and medical devices that might make our lives better, take about half our money, and jail more citizens than even China and Russia do. Like frightened kids in elementary school, we learn to accept this, to think it’s natural. But it’s not right that government forbids people in pain to make their own choices about what might help them. Voluntary is better than force. Free is better than coerced. We’re better off when government is small and people are left to do as they please, unburied.” ~John Stossel

“Since the 80s, there has been a 300 percent increase in disability claims for hard-to-prove illnesses like back pain, stress and other ‘non-exertional restrictions.’ Over the past two decades, the number of people receiving Social Security disability benefits grew from 4 million to 11 million. … We all want to help the genuinely disabled, but a wide range of subjective ailments are affected by attitude. Labeling people victims, telling them they need help, teaches some to think like victims. Social scientists call that ‘learned helplessness.’ Private charities are pretty good at separating real victims from malingerers. But government is not. Its one-size-fits-all rules encourage people to act like victims. Whether people have real physical ailments or just see the economic deck stacked against them, the most damaging thing say to them is: Give up. You can’t make it on your own. Wait for help. Pessimism changes what we think is possible. It shrinks our horizons. … America is full of success stories. But if we obsess over stories about victimhood, that is what we’ll get.” ~John Stossel

“The triumph of liberty is not inevitable, though. And empires do crumble. Rome’s lasted the longest. The Ottoman Empire lasted 623 years. China’s Song, Qing and Ming dynasties each lasted about 300 years. We’ve lasted just 237 years so far…. In that time, we’ve accomplished amazing things, but we shouldn’t take our continued success for granted. Freedom and prosperity are not natural. In human history, they’re rare.” ~John Stossel